Firmatown (Woodford County, KY)

(Also known as Fermantown.) There are two accounts of how Firmatown came to be: The first states the land was given to freemen by their former master, the second that an African American man named Furman won 18 acres in a lottery with a ten cent ticket. In either case, in 1877 there was a landowner named Furman living in Firmatown, along with R. Peters, R. Brown, and H. Smith. By the turn of the century there were 150 people in the community. An 1892 picture of the Fermantown Colored School is included in the Hifner Photo Collection at the Kentucky Historical Society website. For more see Negro Hamlets and Gentlemen Farms: a dichotomous rural settlement pattern in Kentucky's Bluegrass Region, by P. C. Smith.